The spirit or letter of the rules?

[bigwes68]

If the pitch is right down the middle and there's two strikes on the batter in a one-run game, that kid better be swinging, pitch-out or not. The batter should be paying attention to the pitch, not where the catcher is set up. There's always the chance (however small) that they might be faking the pitch-out to get the batter looking at the catcher and not ready to swing.

Furthermore, if a coach is telling his batter to take a pitch with two strikes and sending a runner in a one-run game, he's an idiot and deserves to have that strike called on him.